The Greenmeadow Eichler tract in south Palo Alto is one of two Eichler neighborhoods in the city listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. The other is Green Gables. Eichler Homes built Greenmeadow in 1954 and 1955 on about 73 acres at the Mountain View border: 243 one-story houses designed by the Los Angeles firm Jones & Emmons, plus a community center with a pool, a park and a multipurpose building.
This guide covers the architecture and history, not the market. It draws on the 2005 National Register nomination and the City of Palo Alto's Eichler Neighborhood Design Guidelines, and it notes where those sources disagree.
Who built Greenmeadow, and when
Joseph Eichler's company built the original 243 houses in 1954 and 1955 on its own raw land. The nomination's history section says Eichler broke ground in 1953, which fits the site plans dated about 1953 that the city reproduces in its guidelines. The city's tract table lists the first phases as Greenmeadow No. 1 & No. 2 (1954–1955, Jones & Emmons, 244 lots). The counts don't quite agree: the nomination counts 243 original houses, the tract table 244 lots, and the city's single-story overlay list 249 lots for Green Meadows I and II. None of these documents explains the difference.
A later phase followed. In the early 1960s Eichler built 27 more houses next door, which the city lists as Greenmeadow No. 3 (1961–1962, Claude Oakland). The nomination calls that phase stylistically distinct and leaves it out of the historic district. So when someone says "Greenmeadow," check which phase they mean.
The architects were A. Quincy Jones and Frederick Emmons. The nomination credits their firm with roughly 5,000 of Eichler's 11,000 California homes. Greenmeadow marked a step up for Eichler. Its models added a fourth bedroom or an all-purpose room, two-car garages in place of carports, built-in kitchen appliances and a second bath. For more on the firm, see our Jones & Emmons architect page.
The nomination gives the district's edges as Charleston Road on the north, Nelson Drive on the east, Ben Lomond and Shasta Drive on the southeast, and Alma Street on the southwest. Its address list includes Parkside Drive, Creekside Drive, Greenmeadow Way, Mackay Drive and Scripps Avenue, plus several courts and places.
A site plan built around shared space
Jones & Emmons wanted a "total community," and Eichler got a variance from the city's planning rules so that small slices of every lot could be pooled into common land.
The community center. The nomination measures it at 2.9 acres in the middle of the tract. It holds a multipurpose building, a pool services building, a pool, a park and off-street parking. The buildings match the houses: radiant-heated concrete floors, exposed post-and-beam framing, tongue-and-groove ceilings and floor-to-ceiling sliding glass. They also add concrete block walls and round steel columns under wide overhangs. The pool was rebuilt in the 1980s about 10 percent larger, so the nomination counts it as non-contributing.
Cul-de-sacs and loops. Many of the broad streets end in cul-de-sacs, and the layout loops inward rather than running through.
Landscape. Thomas Church designed the park's original redwood landscaping. He also varied the driveways and the planting shapes at the street, so neighboring lots don't repeat each other.
Paper cutouts. The designers placed paper cutouts of the models on the site plan to fit each lot, catch the sun and give neighbors privacy.
The nomination gives two lot figures. Its description says lots are 6,000 to 7,000 square feet. Its history section says the city required 8,500 square feet per lot, so the plan used 8,000 and pooled the leftover 500 from each lot into a four-acre complex, though the description measures the center at 2.9 acres. The document doesn't reconcile these, so check a specific lot's recorded size. Side setbacks are typically 6 feet on one side and 10 on the other. The nomination also says Jones & Emmons built on Anshen & Allen's earlier concentric-ring plan at nearby Fairmeadow.
The six Greenmeadow models, read from the street
The nomination's survey sorted the houses into six front elevations. Most show a garage on one side and a bedroom wing on the other (Model Five has a concrete block wall instead), with almost no street-facing windows. The brochure plans for the interiors are numbered JE-14 through JE-19. Our Jones & Emmons floor plans page shows how the firm's plans worked.
Model One. An eight-foot dead-level roof in front and a ten-foot roof behind it. Clerestories in the gap light the kitchen and dining area, and the bedroom wing is set back from the street.
Model Two. The same eight-foot front roof, with the ten-foot rear roof over the living room on the garage side and transom glass between the two.
Model Three. A shed roof that starts over the garage and rises toward the center of the house.
Model Four. A single folded roof, flat at both ends with a slight pitch in the middle over a wide recessed entry. Trapezoidal windows run up to the roofline.
Model Five. The nomination says this one appears more often than any other. A single low center-pitch roof spans the full width, with the garage on one side and a concrete block wall on the other. Trapezoidal clerestory glass fills the gable triangles.
Model Six. A recessed center entry between the garage and the bedroom wing. A shed roof runs eight feet high on the garage side and ten feet on the bedroom side, and the bedroom wing has a flat roof.
The city's guidelines single out the chevron roof as a form found in Greenmeadow. Throughout the tract the roofs are flat or about 2:12, thin enough that they seem to float, with no attics.
Inside an original Greenmeadow house
The nomination describes the interior of one well-preserved house; many others have been remodeled since.
Ceilings and walls. The ceiling is the underside of 2x8 tongue-and-groove redwood roof decking. The walls are deep-toned Philippine mahogany veneer paneling.
Floors. Cork in the living areas and asphalt tile elsewhere, chosen to work over the radiant heat in the slab. Radiant heat was standard.
Kitchen. A galley kitchen at the center of the plan. Its counter dropped to table height to become a dining table, and a screen wall about six feet high separated it from the living room.
All-purpose room. Next to the kitchen, with a sliding door to a wood deck in the side yard.
Bedroom wing. A master suite that projects past the living room's glass line. The second bath has a door to the outside.
Rear wall. Floor-to-ceiling glass and a sliding door across most of the width, under an overhang of about three feet.
The nomination puts average living space at 1,600 square feet. Outside, the siding is vertical-grooved redwood plywood, and garage doors were faced in the same siding so they disappear into the wall. For the framing logic behind all of this, see our page on post-and-beam construction.
What the survey counted as original
The nomination includes a point-based checklist for judging each house, and it still works as a field guide. Contributing houses are one story and horizontal, with flat or shallow roofs, square unornamented beams, matching garage doors and flat, plain front doors. Changes that scored against a house included:
a second story, unless original;
visible ducts on the roof, or an atrium cover that changes the roofline;
shingles, stucco, plaster, brick, or aluminum or vinyl siding;
roll-up or ranch-style garage doors, or windows set into the garage door;
front doors with applied molding or decoration, and added street-facing windows.
A house that scored 12 points or more was counted as non-contributing. In the final count, 220 buildings were contributing and 25 buildings and one structure were not, about 92 percent contributing. Original roofs were tar-and-gravel; later re-roofs used modified bitumen, single-ply sheeting or polyurethane foam. Palo Alto's parcel report records a contributing or non-contributing status for many district parcels. Its counts don't match the nomination's and some parcels have no status, so treat it as a first check, not the final word.
Rules that shape changes today
Several layers of rules apply.
Single-story overlay. The city lists Green Meadows I and II (249 lots) and Green Meadows III (27 lots) among its single-story overlay zones. Under the overlay, new work is limited to one habitable floor and 17 feet in height. Lofts and mezzanines count as floors.
National Register district. As of 2018, the guidelines said ADU projects in the Greenmeadow and Green Gables districts were subject to historic preservation design review, with city staff checking the design against the Secretary of the Interior's Standards.
CC&Rs and the review committee. The guidelines name Greenmeadow as one of the neighborhoods with an architectural control committee. They say Eichler's CC&Rs ran 25 years from recording (1954 to 1979 here) and then renewed in 10-year periods. The city does not enforce CC&Rs.
Flood zone. On the guidelines' November 2017 flood map, Greenmeadow sits outside the special flood hazard area, and today's city parcel report shows Zone X for the district's streets. Flood maps change.
The Palo Alto Eichler design guidelines are the city's own summary of these rules. A 2023 city staff report says the Council adopted them on April 2, 2018; the linked copy is the March 2018 final draft. State ADU law has changed since then. Confirm current rules for a specific address with Palo Alto's planning department, and ask an attorney about CC&R questions. Our Palo Alto mid-century modern page covers the city's other Eichler areas.
Frequently asked questions
Who designed the Greenmeadow Eichlers?
Jones & Emmons, the firm of A. Quincy Jones and Frederick Emmons, designed the original 1954–1955 houses. Thomas Church did the landscape. The 27-house phase from 1961–1962 is credited to Claude Oakland in the city's tract table.
Is Greenmeadow a historic district?
Yes. California's Office of Historic Preservation lists Greenmeadow with a registration date of July 28, 2005. The district covers the 243 original houses and the community center. It does not include the early-1960s phase.
How many models are in Greenmeadow?
The nomination's survey found six front elevations, Models One through Six. Some houses didn't fit any one type. The brochure interior plans are numbered JE-14 through JE-19.
Can you add a second story to a Greenmeadow Eichler?
Greenmeadow is in a single-story overlay, which limits new work to one habitable floor and 17 feet. The architectural control committee and the CC&Rs may add their own review. Check with the city's planning department before designing anything.
Related reading
Royal Manor Eichler History: Reading Palo Alto's 1957–58 Tract
Fairmeadow Eichler Tract: The Story of Palo Alto's Circle Streets
San Mateo Highlands Eichler History: The Hillside Tract and the X-100
Curious about a Greenmeadow house's model, phase or history? Call or text the Boyenga Team at Compass at (408) 373-1660 or (650) 383-8606, or contact the Boyenga Team online.
